Kate Johanns

All posts by Kate Johanns

Kate Johanns is a communications professional and freelance writer with more than 13 years of experience in publishing and marketing.

Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Why the Panix attack was a wake-up call

Tech Time Warp: Why the Panix attack was a wake-up call

In this week’s Tech Time Warp, we take a look at how a work emergency is never good news—and when notice of it comes late on a Friday afternoon, it’s even worse. Especially when the news is that your internet...

/ August 25, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Happy birthday to SHARE, the first computer user group

Tech Time Warp: Happy birthday to SHARE, the first computer user group

In this week’s edition of Tech Time Warp, we look at troubleshooting computer issues—or at least finding information about ideas to try—is far easier than it used to be. Simply type a description of the issue you’re experiencing into a...

/ August 18, 2023
Pioneers in Tech
Pioneers in Tech: Logging birthday greetings to Gordon Bell

Pioneers in Tech: Logging birthday greetings to Gordon Bell

In this month’s edition of Pioneers in Tech, we wish a happy birthday to technology visionary Gordon Bell, who turns 89 August 19. Born in Kirksville, Missouri, Bell is a co-founder of what is today the Computer History Museum in...

/ August 11, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Worm named Code Red wakes users up to security risks

Tech Time Warp: Worm named Code Red wakes users up to security risks

In this week’s tech time warp we look at how, following a month of DDoS attacks and security bulletins—including an attack on whitehouse.gov—computer users were on high alert Aug. 1, 2001, as they waited to see whether the Code Red...

/ August 4, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Barbie’s complicated relationship with STEM

Tech Time Warp: Barbie’s complicated relationship with STEM

In this week’s tech time warp, we’re taking a look at Barbie—yes, the iconic doll turned blockbuster movie heroine. She has had a complicated relationship with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) would be an understatement. Teen Talk Barbie, released...

/ July 28, 2023
tech time warp
Tech Time Warp: How human error leads to July 1997 email outage

Tech Time Warp: How human error leads to July 1997 email outage

This week’s Tech Time Warp looks at how, in a world that’s so utterly reliant on the internet, service outages are hardly uncommon anymore, whether they’re the result of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, like that which caused Microsoft...

/ July 21, 2023
Pioneers in Tech: Joan L. Mitchell, co-inventor of the JPEG

Pioneers in Tech: Joan L. Mitchell, co-inventor of the JPEG

This week’s Pioneers in Tech looks at how today’s social media influencers owe much to Joan L. Mitchell, a self-professed “Sputnik baby” who came of age during the space race and ended up co-creating one of the file formats most...

/ July 14, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Tron captivates audiences with 15 minutes of CGI

Tech Time Warp: Tron captivates audiences with 15 minutes of CGI

As with all things technological, it’s easy to take computer-generated imagery, or CGI, for granted—or even complain about CGI, in the case of the much-maligned CGI Flounder from Disney’s recent remake of The Little Mermaid. But in this week’s Tech...

/ July 7, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Malware in the “Form” of a boot sector virus

Tech Time Warp: Malware in the “Form” of a boot sector virus

Although this week’s Tech Time Warp topic is not as prevalent today, boot sector viruses were a widespread issue in the 1990s and 2000s. Especially common during the days of MS-DOS and floppy disks, a boot sector virus attacks a...

/ June 30, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: 80s viruses that hit the Apple II

Tech Time Warp: 80s viruses that hit the Apple II

Apple products have a reputation for being immune to malware, but that is not 100 percent true. In 1988, hackers released two viruses targeting ProDOS, the Apple II operating system. Admittedly, it took hackers five years to attack ProDOS —...

/ June 23, 2023